WASHINGTON – Much of what goes on in Congress appalls Rep. Jim Cooper.

When the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing in November 2013 on the rollout of health care reform, Cooper, D-Nashville, felt Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California, committee chairman, ran it in a hyper-partisan fashion.

Issa used more than the customary five minutes to ask his opening questions, and then cut off the committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, for barely straying over that. He interrupted 12 members to launch into speeches and additional questions of his own.

And the chairman's questioning of administration witnesses struck Cooper as badgering, especially his suggestion that Democrats were using softball questions to "rehabilitate" the credentials of administration officials.

"That implies they need rehabilitating," Cooper said when his turn came. "I believe in fairness. The American people do not want to see a kangaroo court here."

For Cooper, Issa's handling of the hearing was just one more example of how Congress — and American politics generally — has turned into "mud wrestling," with lawmakers trying to one-up one another to get their remarks on TV.

"We need a political system that is better than pro wrestling," the Nashville lawmaker said during an interview in his Washington office.

The window behind Cooper's desk offers a postcard view of a stately Capitol dome, even if lawmakers' behavior underneath it often falls short of that standard.

"Oftentimes I feel like I am the only adult in the room, or the only one acting like an adult," Cooper said.

And the nightly cable television political shows, he said, have no interest in moderates such as himself.

"They want somebody from the far left or the far right," Cooper said. "It's all fake."

This year, Cooper, having turned 60 in June, is again offering a moderate record and professorial demeanor to voters of the 5th Congressional District, seeking his seventh consecutive term and 13th overall. Cooper has served from January 1983 to January 1995 and from January 2003 to the present.

He left temporarily after losing the 1994 U.S. Senate race to Republican Fred Thompson.

Four Republicans — Chris Carter of Franklin, Ronnie Holden of Madison, Bob Ries of Nashville and John "Big John" Smith of Nashville — are running in the Aug. 7 primary for the right to oppose him in November. There is also one independent, Paul Deakin of Nashville.

"Overall voters are dissatisfied with a Democratic-led Washington, D.C.," said Brent Leatherwood, executive director of the state Republican Party.

In general elections for the House, however, Cooper has never gotten less than 64 percent of the vote. And while the rest of Tennessee has gone red politically, Nashville and Memphis stay blue.

Political analysts don't expect a change anytime soon.

Bruce Oppenheimer, an expert on Tennessee politics at Vanderbilt University, said the 5th and the 9th (Memphis) congressional districts "are unlike the other seven House districts in their partisan composition. They're more urban, more minority and more Democratic."

While Republican state legislators made noises about carving up Davidson County during redistricting, Oppenheimer said, they were stopped by Cooper's GOP colleagues, who didn't want more Democrats in their districts.

And David Kanervo, a political science professor emeritus at Austin Peay State University, said "a winning coalition can be easily constructed in his district and not much incentive exists for a strong Republican challenger to be recruited to oppose him."

Cooper's track record shows liberal views on the environment, immigration, civil rights, women's rights and gay rights. And after the Newtown, Conn., massacre in December 2012, he and Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, were the only Tennessee members willing to look at tighter gun control laws.

But he mixes all that with a hawkish determination to do something about the nation's deficit spending and keep its military No. 1.

"Cooper is more moderate than the national Democratic Party and therefore more palatable to Tennesseans," said Mark Byrnes, a political analyst at Middle Tennessee State University.

But it is Cooper's attention to budget issues, both the broad and the microscopic, that fuel his wonkish reputation.

"If you don't have a good budget, you don't have an ability to solve any problem," Cooper said.

In 2012, he won praise from editorial writers for leading the "Brave 38," a group of 38 House members who voted for a budget mixing tax increases with cuts in entitlement programs to square the nation's finances. It was based on ideas from the 2010 National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

In 2013, Congress adopted a watered-down version of the Nashville Democrat's "No Budget, No Pay" proposal, which called for withholding members' paychecks if they failed to pass a budget and all major spending bills by Oct. 1, the start of the federal fiscal year.

Cooper wants lawmakers to live under that threat every year. The wording adopted in 2013 made it applicable for just one year.

His goal with No Budget, No Pay "is to force Congress to behave," he said. "My colleagues hate that."

"It's 615-714-1719. You can put that in the paper if you want," Cooper said during an interview in his Capitol Hill office, adding he has almost no problems with late-night calls.

"Literally tens of thousands of people have my cellphone number."

In addition to national issues, constituents often call about personal matters — for help with a passport or to fend off a threatened home foreclosure.

"We try to be accessible and friendly. That's the job," Cooper said.

He also invites constituents to his district office, which is in a downtown Nashville library instead of a heavily fortified federal building.

Said Cooper: "It's free downtown parking — if you check out a book."

Republicans, independents hoping to face Rep. Jim Cooper in November in the 5th Congressional District

Chris Carter

• Party: Republican

• Age: 56.

• Occupation: Information technology consultant.

• Home: Franklin.

• Reason for running: "I think America is languishing in a 'crisis of leadership.' Americans want the federal government to exercise fiscal discipline, cut wasteful spending and reduce the heavy tax burdens and over regulation that are crippling small businesses. Americans want to work but the professional politicians in Washington are not listening . . . The only answer is to replace the leadership with commonsense people from among the people with the business experience and courage get this done."

John "Big John" Smith

• Party: Republican

• Age: 54.

• Occupation: Deputy sheriff.

• Home: Nashville.

• Reason for running: "I am running because I want to defend freedom and liberty for our nation. . .the people of my district and the future of our children."

Bob Ries

• Party: Republican

• Age: 74.

• Occupation: Property management.

• Home: Nashville.

• Reason for running: "The people in both parties are absolutely walking over the Constitution." He adds that he wants, among other things, to close U.S. southern borders with a "virtual fence," return federal lands to state control, get the federal government out of education and challenge the authority of federal regulations, especially health and the environmental rules.

Ronnie Holden, Republican

• Party: Republican

• Age: 54

• Occupation: Medical transport

• Home: Madison

• Reason for running: "Like the rest of America, I'm upset with what's happening to the country." He wants, among other steps, to make English the official language, restrict abortions, support gun rights, oppose Common Core standards for K-12 education, reduce America's overseas involvement, implement term limits for members of Congress and aggressively deport undocumented immigrants.

Paul Deakin, independent

• Age: 46.

• Occupation: Instructor in music theory, Vanderbilt University

• Home: Nashville

• Reason for running: ​"Paul Deakin will run a wholly positive and non-adversarial campaign, rooted in compassion and reverence for all life. He is a true independent with no ties to any established political party and will represent each and every one of his constituents with fidelity and impartiality. This includes the nonhuman animals who live with us, around us, in Tennessee's fields and streams, high up in our mountains and skies, and secretly under our feet."